Denmark is the best.. Come.

Typically I'm not a very lucky guy. My friends will testify this point. I don't really win much at the casinos. I've never won a game of bingo. You know how when you break up into groups in class and there is that one absolute dime in the room that every guy in the room is praying that they get put into a group with? I'm never in that group. I'm just not lucky. But, sometimes I feel much luck, like when I get attacked by goats in a prairie in Denmark at 6am on a Saturday morning. A goat almost ate my hand off, but rather instead, I just have a solid bite mark and a sweet story. I would consider that to be lucky. Anyway, come to Denmark. If only it had good weather.... Come now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1IEtzDpLUg

Copenhagen is the best of all cities.

Well the first day in Copenhagen was an eventful one. I got up at 7:28am to get on a train that leaves around 7:45am, so needless to say I got there 5 minutes early. I sat forever in an orientation. I walked forever around the city in a small group. I drank beer on a beautiful patio in the sunset. I love this city.

I'm not gonna say the first night in Copenhagen was eventful though, because that word does not do it justice. My semantic ability can do better than that, so I'm gonna go with frickin NUTS! The details aren't really necessary to get the picture (actually they just aren't suitable for public knowledge), but I'll give a reader's digest version. We went out to some bars, played some games, met some friends, and walked around the city for an hour. We lost track of time and missed the last train home til the morning trains started at 4:45am. It was almost a blessing in disguise, because we just bought a bunch of Red Bull and walked around town and hung out with random Danes we met on the street. We got to venture out way over to Christiania and still made it back for the 4:45am train. I didn't get into bed until 5:30am, but I wasn't concerned since I didn't have to be back in Copenhagen til 3:15pm. It's nearly needless to say, but obviously I overslept and missed the one mandatory thing I had to do all day. So I effectively wasted an entire day, but it was more than worth it.

Now I just gotta get a decent night's sleep so I can wake up at 7am and get my visa. But as soon as that's over, I'm going to IKEA. It's gonna be awesome. So good afternoon, America, I'll see you later.



PS - Instead of saying hold the star key to unlock the phone, it says "long press". I love literal translations.

Why hello, Denmark, nice to meet you.

So I kinda am moved in into Denmark. My bags are still full with all my clothes sitting open on the floor, but I guess that's no different from how I live at home, so I can deal with that. There isn't a dresser in my room either. I will have to figure out how to best store my clothes. I have a closet with a few hangers, but there aren't drawers in a closet. But no worries, my Future Problem Solvers background will guide me through this predicament. The bed is tiny and not comfortable, and there is only one pillow. Luckily, I'm in Scandinavia so I can just hop on over to the greatest store of all time (IKEA) and invest in a pillow or two and some silk sheets - boom! I could also use a poster, my walls are depressingly white. Overall, it's definitely tolerable, I just need to add a little personal touch to make it seem like I'm not living in a hotel for four months.

I am kind of regretting not living with a host family, though. I'm glad I get to live with other students and stuff, but there is that whole providing my own food aspect. I have to shop and cook or buy all my meals. I got here on a Sunday, and the grocery stores weren't open so I never got to shop so I have nothing to cook for myself. So it's almost 5am and I haven't eaten since lunch time and there is no means of me feeding myself. Woe is me, right? The guy spending four months in Europe has problems, everyone feel pity.

Why am I up at this hour you ask? Great question. I'm all sorts of jet lagged. I have no sense of time right now. I got here at like 3pm, had a few beers, and passed out before 8pm because I hadn't slept in over 40 hours. I woke up at 10pm to find a party out in my living room. I tried to join them, but within 10 minutes I found myself zonked out on my bed again. So I woke up at 3am again, still exhausted but couldn't really sleep. So I've just putzin' around my room trying to clean and stuff for awhile, and just wasting time on the internet. I'm really good at wasting time on the internet.

So after I cross off food, IKEA, and sleeping off my to-do list, there will be really only one thing left that I need to do, make friends! I don't have any yet, but that's OK. I met some cool people on the flight over, but they don't live near me. There are two girls from GAC here, but they don't live near me. I don't have a cell phone yet, so I just need to solve that problem and then I can start keeping the friends I make! Hip hip!



Tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44JK8moSzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBAd6I4nfDk

It's not summer anymore.

It's the middle of August, and it's almost time to usher in a new season. It's time to quit your shitty summer job that you hate and get back to school. And before I pounce across the pond for a semester, I gotta take care of unfinished business stateside. You know, paying that last bill, cleaning your room, collecting that $20 your little brother owes you, buying your friend a hat because your dumbass lost it almost two years ago and paid him back, etc. Just the typical stuff. So now that my business is settled around these parts, it's time for an adventure. An adventure filled with unknown places, new friends to be made, and plenty of academics (the most important one, duh)! But while these new beginnings are exciting and all, there is plenty to miss back in good ol' Minnesota. So I'm gonna pour one out for all the homies that won't be with me right here, the GAC crew, the Cloudians, the family, and all the miscellaneous friends who don't fit into those big three categories. I'm gonna miss all. I will still be writing as much as I can, so don't forget to check back for updates. We will be in touch, America.


iTunes update: 2600 on da nose. Almost half way back to normalcy.

Tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wGVACiASMU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vzifZbPMo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJPU_ssn_s

Dogz iz better than catz!

Consider the life of a human. What are your goals? You want to be successful. You want to have money. You want to be happy and healthy. You want to be liked. You want to be loved. You want a family, yada yada bullshit etc. Your life is complicated, you gotta a lot of things to worry about.

Consider the life of a dog. The dog only has one goal in life, and that's to get his back scratched. They don't need anything else, the only things a dog's limited brain can grasp comes with getting their back scratched. Nothing else even matters to them. My dog gets up at 3:00am when I get home, out of bed, and down the stairs because he knows he will get his back scratched. I personally don't know if I have enough passion for anything in life that would get me out of bed at 3:00am and down some stairs. Maybe if you told me Chris Kluwe wanted to play DOTA with me I'd get up. But that's it.

Dogs are the coolest.

Just think about that.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_kse5Tn8WE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myvRZd-KOME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hindKbUyI

Summer fun

This summer, I have gotten a pretty sufficient tour of bumfuck no where Minnesota, and in typical rural fashion, they were all accompanied with plenty of beer. I've been to Mantorville. I've been to Spicer. I've been to Zimmerman. I've been to St. James (dangerously close to the Iowa border). I'm going to Bay Lake. This list is has some pretty awesome drinking destinations, accompanied with some pretty awesome friends and family. But I'm blastin off across the pond in 9 days, away from small town Minnesota and off to big city Europe. It's gonna be frickin sweet, I can't wait. But I just want to take this time to reflect on and give a shout out to not only the best small town in the world, but the best college in the world: THE Gustavus Adolphus College.


I would love to leave my Gusties with a few words of wisdom for when I'm gone (for self-esteem reasons, I will pretend people will notice my absence), so pardon my schpeel.

I feel like being in a fraternity or sorority at Gustavus is almost redundant, since we are that great of a community already. I hope the young Gusties are this way as well. Help them along this path.

Arborview is a long ass way from campus. Definitely bringing a bicycle.

On a related note, Kevin Bonnema and I are started a bicycle gang (like the ones with peddles) in the spring. Recruiting starts immediately. All interested parties, text one of us with the codeword for more information.

I know the Princeton Review came out with that whole Stone-Cold sober thing about Gusties. I know we belong no where near that list. But let's not go overboard trying to prove them wrong. I want my college to stay in tact. And what is even more important, DON'T make any stupid jokes about that review trying to be clever, because it's already hammered into the ground. Anytime I see it mentioned in a Facebook status from now on, I will punch something soft as to not hurt my hand, yet still express my anger in a physical outburst. It's about as cliche as a Biggie remix/mashup.

I have more things to write about, but I'm really tired and need to sleep. I got distracted by reruns of X Games BMX street competition. This stuff is nuts. I'll edit this later with my other shtuff.


OVER A WEEK LATER EDIT - I completely forgot about this and forgot what I was gonna write about. This will have to do.

Inception! (OK, not really)

I started off this post by writing a few paragraphs about the debt crisis, filled to the brim with griping about partisan politics, scumbag banks, and corrupt governments. I was about to hit "publish post", but I decided to read through it. It was whiny and I hated it. So I scratched 45 minutes of writing and decided I would rather just talk about something cooler, dreams.

There are two kinds of dreams. The first are your goals and aspirations. When I was a kid, I dreamed of growing up to be Randy Moss. When I was a young high schooler, I dreamed of getting laid. When I was a senior, I dreamed of living on my own and being in college. In college, I dream of making money, traveling, and life after college (not that I am looking forward to it, just dreaming). These are important at all, but for this article, I don't care about em.

The second kind of dreams are the actual dreams you have every night. Everyone has them, and you mostly forget the details, if not forget them entirely. These are your standard medieval duel dreams, the "I'm a penguin" dreams, or dreaming Chad Ochocino retweeted you. All equally awesome.

But last night, I dreamed something that actually altered my life today. It changed what I did, and may have a prolonged effect on my personal health. I know, dramatic.

I had an appointment with my physical therapist today at 1:00pm. This is normally earlier than I would get up, as my sleep cycle is all sorts of abnormal thanks to my awesome second shift warehouse job. I didn't set an alarm, because whenever I set an alarm I have a terrible time sleeping, waking up constantly throughout the night because I know I am going to be startled at some point by my alarm. Typically just knowing I have to get up for something is enough to get me up for it, alarm be damned. So, as always, I woke up on time. I got dressed, drove to the office, checked in, sat in the waiting room, talked to my PT, went through all my treatments, left the office, scheduled another appointment, drove home, and went back to bed for a catnap. I got up from my catnap what seemed like about an hour later. I went downstairs to the bathroom and then went back to bed. It seemed like another half an hour later or so before I woke up again, this time actually looking at the clock. At first it seemed that 1:30pm didn't make much sense, since I had a 1pm appointment and had taken a nap after it, but I was pretty much half asleep still so it didn't quite click. It was time to clean up and start my day. The instant water hit my face, I had the craziest snap back into reality I have ever experienced. As you can pretty clearly deduct from my little anecdote here, I didn't go to my appointment. Apparently, dreaming you were there doesn't count as actually being there. I fell victim to a real life "And it was all just a dream!" trope. Dreaming is awesome.




EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote the majority of this with my chin firmly rested on my right collar bone in order to hold the Kleenex over the gash I gave myself shaving. Not to boast or anything, but I play through pain.

EDITOR'S SECOND NOTE: I say awesome too much. I need a new awesome word to replace my incessant use of awesome.